A Second Glance
by Unravelling
Summary: Alek lays bare his secrets that night in the Ottoman capital, but Deryn still struggles with her own deceptions. Unable to reveal it herself, the decision is made for her when the revolution goes off-rail and, for Deryn, the world abruptly ends.


**I've just finished reading Behemoth (Which is awesome and belongs to Scott Westerfeld) and I felt like writing this**

**So enjoy! :3**

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><p>She realises, in that dead fancy room atop the Hotel Hagia Sophia, that it's the first time Alek looks at her as something other than a friend.<p>

Nothing moves in the lavish room. Not even the slightest barking flutter from those silken tassels, despite the whispering breath of the chilly night wind against her skin.

There's a glint in those green, _green_ eyes. Acknowledgement. Acceptance. But it's not what she wants.

She only listens with one ear – _the other is deafened by the frantic drumbeat of her heart_ – as he tells her he could be emperor one day.

That final divulgence, peppered by the restless insomnia of a clanker city, is not the one she wants.

He looks at her expectantly, eyes gleaming with feverish excitement and with all the blether she's been spouting, she suddenly feels obligated to return the favour in the world-shaking-secrets department. She knows what she wants to tell him, but the words don't come, swept away by fear and panic like the spreading chill in her gut.

So she tells him about her mission instead. Tells Aleksandar von Hohenberg every blistering detail of a mission so secret, even her team hadn't known the whole truth.

And as they fall into a back and forth chatter of plans and decisions, she tries to convince herself that it's for the mission and not him –_what a load of clart! –_ but she knows the truth.

Knows that from the moment Alek had bared his bleeding heart to her in that shadowy machine room, her world had been gravitating bit by bit towards his.

When he clasps her shoulders and grins at her, emerald eyes shining with _brotherly_ love, she returns the gesture even as her little beating heart turns to ice and shatters.

Her blood feels frozen and the prickling behind her eyes becomes a burn which she masks by punching him in the shoulder and laughing assurances.

It's the first time he looks at her with something other than friendship at heart but it's not the look she wants.

_This is me!_ She wants to scream.

_This is for you!_ She wants to cry.

But Dylan Sharp is a boy, and boys don't cry over lost loves and second glances.

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><p>When she finds him slumped against the twisted metal controls of the engine car, her heart stops in a moment of incomprehension. And then that long-expired shell falls away as she falls to his side sobbing his name in whispered breaths as the dead fingers of grief crush her heart, no longer caring that her voice is like broken glass.<p>

But the truth remains. The train. The lightning. The wind whistling in her ears as he shoves her out. All true.

Just like the blood seeping through his tattered tunic. Like his blistered skin, still crackling with unnatural energy.

She's still whispering his name – _AlekAlekAlekAlek –_ as if it might bring him back, like in the old stories, when his cracked lips move.

_What's your real name?_

Tears wrench free.

_Deryn._

He smiles. A broken, shattered thing that claws at her soul.

_Es ist nichts._

She knows enough clanker-speak to know he's lying.

_How long?_ Has he known? Till the end? She doesn't know what she's asking.

He doesn't answer yet. One shaking hand presses to her feverish, tear-stained cheeks. His green eyes glow and it's the second time he's looked at her as something other than a friend, but she doesn't want to see them. Doesn't want to see that gleam go dull forever.

_Es ist nichts, liebste._

Sweetheart. The seconds tick by._  
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Silence descends.

It takes a moment for her to realise that he won't ever answer again. Won't ever look again.

A second glance. His last.

And then she screams and sobs and lets everything go because without _him – the sharp clanker intelligence, the quirky royal awkwardness –_ there's nothing left.

Because Deryn Sharp is a girl and girls cry over lost loves and last chances all the time, right? Because that'll bring the daft boy back, right?

But deep in her aching heart, she knows it's already far too late.

_I thought you were all I ever needed in this life._

_Why couldn't you prove me wrong?_

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><p><strong>Hope you enjoyed it :)<strong>

**"Es ist nitchts" are the words supposedly spoken by Archduke Franz Ferdinand even as he bled to death. It means "it is nothing".  
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**Any feedback/critique is welcome**

**Otherwise...Fare thee well~  
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